I live in Ohio with my husband, Matt, and our adorable sons, Zachariah & Jonah. This...is my life.

Monday, March 31, 2008

Tips of the trade

I've been trying to think of some great tips that I've picked up as a mom/housewife. I don't think I probably have as many as I thought, but I did want to share one that has been working great for us this past week.

1. Teeth: I started playing a game with Zachariah while brushing his teeth at night. He opens right up and lets me brush them quickly this way with no fuss. He even laughs and plays along. I talk about how I'm brushing out all the food he's eaten that day. We started this after Easter because he'd had a lot of chocolate, and I told him I needed to brush all the chocolate away. I do something like this: "Oh, let me brush all the chocolate out of your teeth" brush, brush, brush, "What is that back there? Do I see cereal from breakfast?" brush, brush, brush, etc. When Matt brushed his teeth the other night, there were animals in there. :) But I don't know if that's helpful or just confusing. Anyway, we've had an easy teeth-brushing week.

2. Toys: I was having a headache with toys recently. Solution: buy some clear storage containers to help organize certain types of toys together. I still need more, but I'm doing a little at a time. I have one little box with a lid for his farm set. He'll get that one out when he wants to play with it. I have another for his smaller cars/trucks. Zachariah is pretty good about keeping things organized and in their place, so he knows which ones go back into which box. There are times when they all get dumped on the floor at the same time, but at least they get put away in an organized manner.

3. Crayons: This helps keep my sanity. When Zachariah colors we only give him 4 crayons at a time. When he's done, we put those 4 crayons up. It helps reduce the risk of any wall coloring. I know that we won't always be able to do that, but it's good for now.

OK, maybe my brain is on hold right now. I just wanted to get my last post done for March. More some other time maybe.

5 comments:

we play the same tooth brushing game!We also sort all of O's toys in bins. In a pinch, for lighter things and things that aren't used as much, I've also used gift bags that were laying around (you know - for the 5 million plastic snakes, bugs and small dinosaurs). Now we just need to find something strong/large enough for the 5 miles of train track.We may need to try your crayon trick with markers - we throw out a lot of dried out ones that get missed when we're putting them away. good tip!

My kids are only allowed to color if they are strapped into their booster seats at the dining room table. And then I have to count the crayons/markers before they are allowed out of their seats. Oh, and don't forget to check pockets when coming in from playing with sidewalk chalk.

We use a ton of those clear things for toys. We don't have a seperate playroom so it's nice to be able to put everything away at the end of the day. Plus, we're trying to institute a rule that we can't take out a new bin until the last bin is put away.

Love the teeth tip. Will definately try this out tonight. When we were at the dentist last fall she could actually tell which child didn't like to have her teeth brushed based on plaque build up. sigh.

About Me

I am a mother. I have been married to Matt since 2000, and we have two beautiful sons - Zachariah (born March 2006) & Jonah (born March 2013). I am a licensed teacher, but I love being a stay at home mom.